In the Loop of Mimetic Desire:
Theatre, Art, and Architecture in Chicago

Chicago, Illinois U.S.A.

July 8-11, 2026

Co-Coordinators:  Maura Junius and Martha J. Reineke

At 8:30 pm on October 8, 1871 a fire started in a small barn on DeKoven Street in Chicago, IL. Two days later, two-thirds of the city lay in smoldering ruins. 17,000 buildings had been destroyed and $222 million in property, one-third of the city’s entire valuation, had gone up in smoke. That tragedy, dreadful as it was, generated a response that set Chicago on a road to greatness it may never have taken, but for the conflagration. And, absent the fire, the COV&R 2026 conference theme would surely be different. For the city in which we are meeting was born on October 10, 1871, when the first load of lumber arrived to rebuild Chicago, just as the final blaze was extinguished.

Chicago after the fire grew at a frenetic pace. With money and creative talent arriving daily by train, a new city emerged on the leading edge of architecture and the arts. Chicago’s skyscrapers—the first in the world—became prominent markers of the city’s daring embrace of innovation. At a time when Parisians saw Impressionist art as too scandalous to own, three Chicago women– Bertha Palmer, Annie Swan Coburn, and Elizabeth Stickney—built art collections in which Impressionist artists featured prominently. Their acquisitions eventually comprised the core collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Twenty-two years after the fire, in 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition to which twenty-one million visitors came. Stoking Chicago’s spirit of invention and creativity for decades to come, the exposition had a profound effect on US architecture and visual arts as well as on architecture and the arts internationally.

Today, the Chicago skyline is considered the most architecturally significant in the world. The holdings of its Art Institute are second only to The Met in NYC among US art museums. Along the way, Chicago’s grit and community spirit, this took root in its many auditoriums in the early twentieth century, made and continues to make Chicago a nationally-acclaimed hub for independent theatre. Fifty million people visit Chicago each year. Absorbing the city’s energy, they learn from and find joy in the architecture, art, and theatre that is concentrated in the Chicago Loop, the heart of downtown.

The Chicago Loop offers COV&R a unique opportunity to explore visual culture in light of mimetic theory. Our meeting is innovative by virtue of its content, exploring a theme not previously a focus at a COV&R conference. Its mode also invites new forms of engagement by conference participants. We liken our Loop setting (DePaul University’s Loop Campus and the Fine Arts Building) to a laboratory, rich in potential for developing, critiquing, and applying mimetic theory in the context of visual culture. We hope too that conference participants will extend their visit to Chicago beyond the four days of the conference in order to build on what they have learned while taking architectural history tours, attending plays, and visiting its art museums.

The Meeting will be held at two Chicago Loop locations:  Concurrent sessions where papers will be presented will be held on Wednesday, July 8 and Saturday, July 11 at the DePaul University Conference Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd.  Plenary sessions will be held on Thursday, July 9, and Friday, July 10, in the Chicago Youth Symphony Room at the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave.   The venues are a five-minute walk from each other. 

Please check back after February 1 for information on travel, hotels, social events and receptions, etc. as well as a link to registration.

Call for Papers and Proposals

The annual meeting affords scholars and practitioners of mimetic theory a once-a-year opportunity for conversation and dialogue.  Therefore, we welcome for our concurrent sessions paper proposals related to any aspect of René Girard’s mimetic theory, and not only those explicating the conference theme.  Paper proposals may come from any field of study.  

We also welcome proposals on the conference theme which offer participants new opportunities to explore visual culture in light of mimetic theory.  Our Loop setting supports especially active engagement with architecture, theatre, and the arts. 

The program coordinator for the meeting, Martha Reineke, is preparing an annual meeting bibliography which will be available shortly.  

About Visual Culture

“Visual culture” has not been the primary theme of a COV&R conference previously.  Yet the combination of these two words lends itself to the interdisciplinary features of mimetic theory, suggesting that what humans bring to view are fundamentally cultural phenomena.  Although the term is sometimes used narrowly in arts curricula, by “visual culture,” we refer broadly to images and objects which humans engage by sight.  These elements play a significant role in our lives. Visual culture is the product of perception, beliefs, and identities.  More than a natural ability, our vision attests to the formative power of our desires and our institutions.  As a consequence, images and objects become meaningful in “context” in ways not fully captured when they are treated as “texts.”   Our visual culture confirms that what humans bring to view is always, already cultural phenomena. 

We particularly welcome proposals that develop, critique, or apply mimetic theory in respect to any of the following:   

Plays, Art, Architectural History, and Architecture

• Plays in any time period or cultural setting—with special attention to their performance.  Possible topics: Girard’s A Theater of Envy; Girard’s writings on Greek tragedies; or plays with Chicago authors and/or settings (e.g., A Raisin in the Sun, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Proof, Yasmina’s Necklace, A Steady Rain, The Light, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom).  
• Paintings, photography, sculpture, ceramics in any time period or cultural setting—with special attention to permanent holdings at the Art Institute of Chicago or its summer 2026 special exhibitions. Consider also works at other Chicago museums, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the National Museum of Mexican Art.
• Architectural history— including Chicago architectural history; also welcome are proposals about architectural practice today.  

Visual Culture and Questions of Mimetic Theory

Visual culture elicits important questions from us.  The possibilities for engaging this topic are unlimited.   This list is a sampling intended to spark your own questions.  

• Who or what constrains the visible in visual culture?  
• How are seeing and knowing related in human cultural experience, past and present?  
• How are artifacts of visual culture commodified?  
• What is not permitted to be experienced visually (forbidden desires)? 
• What are alternative pathways to visual culture (e.g., reliance on other senses; tactile graphics, inclusive access)? 
• How are differences between propaganda and art adjudicated in visual culture? 
• What characterizes the visual culture of the sacred? The holy? 
• The sacred transcends the visible but remains tethered to it.  How does that connection influence what humans perceive as the sacred?  In what ways does visual culture attest to the violence of that tethering, per Girard’s definition of “the sacred”? 

New to Mimetic Theory?

If you are new to mimetic theory and are looking for a sounding board for your initial explorations of René Girard’s mimetic theory, a presentation at the COV&R annual meeting sessions will afford you this opportunity. We welcome mimetic theory novices.  Sessions are conducted in a collegial manner and include significant time for discussion.  The annual meeting bibliography is forthcoming.

How to Submit Your Proposal

Proposals should be submitted to COV&R Chicago Content no later than March 30, 2026.  

Proposals should contain your name, affiliation, the title of the paper, and a 200-300 word abstract of the planned paper.  Panel submissions should be submitted by one person and should contain abstracts for each panelist.  All submissions should include a statement at the end of the proposal listing technology needs. If needs are not stated at the time of submission, the conference center may be unable to accommodate them. 

Participants will be notified of the status of their proposal within three weeks of submission. After the deadline for submission of proposals, authors of accepted papers will be notified of the length of their session, the time limit on their presentation, and the length of the discussion period for their session. Where possible, accepted papers will be grouped into sessions with similar topics, themes, or methodological approaches. 

If you are a graduate student and your proposal has been accepted, there is the possibility of applying for the Raymund Schwager, SJ Memorial Essay Contest. See below. 

Raymund Schwager, SJ Memorial Essay Contest

An award of $1,500 to be shared by up to three graduate students will be given for the best papers at the COV&R 2026 meeting in Chicago.  Abstracts must previously have been accepted for presentation. The prize-winning essay (or essays) can be on any subject but must reflect engagement with René Girard’s mimetic theory.  Winning essays will be announced in the conference program and will be presented in a plenary session at the July meeting.

No longer than 2500 words or ten pages excluding notes, the essays should be readable in 25 minutes at a plenary session of the July meeting. Students submitting their paper for consideration should sending a letter to that effect and the full text of their paper in an e-mail attachment to COV&R Chicago Content. Because of blind review, the author’s name should not be stated in the essay or in the title of the document file.  The due date for submissions is May 15, 2026.  

Confirmed Plenary Speakers

Theatre

Emilio Williams, playwright

Emilio Williams is a bilingual Spanish/English, award-winning non-fiction writer, playwright, translator, and educator. His writing and scholarship explore experimental dialogues with literary traditions.

¡Bernarda!, Emilio’s latest play, is a bilingual trans-adaption of Federico García Lorca’s classic tragedy. It was co-presented by Teatro Vista and Steppenwolf 1700 in 2023 and produced by Teatro Audaz in 2024. His other plays have been produced in Argentina, Estonia, France, Ireland, México, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Washington DC.

A Steady Rain performance

A Steady Rain by Keith Huff explores love and rage on the streets of Chicago, as a routine domestic disturbance call sends two Chicago cops on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives. This play has received several awards and nominations for its various productions.

Visual Arts

The René Girard Lecture – Tania Checchi

The 2026 Girard Lecturer is Professor Tania Checchi. Checchi received her PhD from the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid. She is a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, where she teaches Aesthetics, Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. She also teaches seminars on Comparative Religions and Violence and Subjectivity at the graduate school of the Colegio de Saberes in Mexico City. Her areas of specialization include the phenomenological tradition, interreligious dialogue from the perspective of mimetic theory, and the philosophical status of the image as a symbolic and ritual effect. Her publications include a book on Levinas’ phenomenology, Sense and Exteriority, a number of articles, and translations of E. Fackenheim, M. Dufrenne, René Girard, and Emmanuel Levinas.
 
 

Edgar Calel: Corn Mountain of Life (Exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago)

Guatemala-born artist Edgar Calel works closely with materials, rituals, and techniques from his Maya-Kaqchikel family and community. For Calel, rather than an expression of individuality, art is a way to pass down knowledge and understanding through generations, amplifying long historical traditions and communal bonds. At its heart, his work honors the idea that knowledge is shared, not owned.

Calel’s work suggests that a museum can hold more than objects: it can hold relationships to land, to family, and to each other. As the artist notes, “The world is what you know, what you can reach for.”

Calel Exhibit Speaker Announcement Forthcoming.
 
 

Architecture

Francis Morrone – Architectural Historian and Professor at New York University

Francis Morrone is the author of thirteen books, including Guide to New York City Urban Landscapes (W.W. Norton, 2013) and, with Henry Hope Reed, The New York Public Library: The Architecture and Decoration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (W.W. Norton, 2011), as well as architectural guidebooks to Philadelphia and Brooklyn. He was for six and a half years an art and architecture critic for the New York Sun. He is the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, of the Landmarks Lion Award of the Historic Districts Council, and of New York University’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Mimesis in Architecture

Ivan Blečić

Ivan Blečić is Professor and Head of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, Italy. He has a twenty-year long teaching experience in urban planning, evaluation and policy. His research interests include planning theory, evaluation methods and decision support for planning and territorial policy, urban economics, and urban modelling and simulation. Together with Paul Dumouchel and Emanuel Muroni, he is developing a research program on mimetic theory and the social production of space.

Emanuel Muroni

Emanuel Muroni is an urban planner and researcher at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Architecture at the University of Cagliari in Italy where he explores the implications of René Girard’s mimetic theory in urban studies, political geography, and the social production of space. He earned his PhD in Architecture and Environment in 2021 with a dissertation titled Urban Spaces as Mimetic Objects.

Mimetic Theory 101

This lecture and discussion will be offered by Grant Kaplan who is an Associate Professor of Theology at St. Louis University.  In what has become a COV&R tradition, the conference will begin with an introduction to Girard for participants new to mimetic theory or who welcome a refresher.

Grant Kaplan

Grant Kaplan is professor of historical and systematic theology at Saint Louis University. He is the author of Answering the Enlightenment: The Catholic Recovery of Historical Revelation (2006), René Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology (2016), and Faith and Reason through Christian History: A Theological Essay (2022), and co-edited the Oxford History of Modern German Theology. Volume 1: 1781–1848 (Oxford University Press, 2023). He has served on the board of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion and on the editorial board for Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture.